My Other Blog

Tag Archives: friends

When Emily introduced the new topic for the “Remember the Time?” blog hop this week, I knew I would have endless things to write about. The prompt was “Remember the time we got really scared?” and my answer is yes. In fact, I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t scared.

I didn’t start off scared in most situations. It stemmed from over-thinking a situation, getting nervous about it, and being scared of the worst possible outcome. I feel like I could be a good survivalist because I would prepare for the worst case scenario. But then again, isn’t anyone who is still alive a great survivalist?

I could find a way to get worried about the most inconsequential activities. But in retrospect, the things I should’ve been worried about (like walking to and from school alone) didn’t bother me one bit. Oh, childhood.

Here are some things in my every day childhood life that scared me:

1. Losing my parents, getting abandoned, or having to be raised by someone else. This was like, my number one. I guess I made a comparative study of my parents versus other parents (of classmates or neighbors) and mine won every time. There was no way I would let my parents out of my sight.

2. Being trapped in a dark room. This happened to my neighbors and I. We were sitting in their shed, minding our own business when their older sister’s friend closed the door and locked us in there. I panicked. Obviously it would’ve been a lot more traumatizing if I was alone in there because they could’ve forgotten me. But since my friends were in there as well, we worried together. The best part was when the girl who locked us in there pinched her finger in the door while letting us out. Serves you right, bitch.

3. The Omen (1976). When I was eight years old I told my parents that I wanted to watch a scary movie that wasn’t Jaws. Jaws was like my go-to scary movie. Sharks were another fear of mine. So my parents were like, “Okay let’s introduce our daughter to Satan in child form and see if she enjoys it.” Like, as if I wasn’t scared of the world enough already. Now I had to worry about scary boys, scary nannies, scary dogs, being impaled, having 666 written on my head somewhere, etc. I still really like the name Damien though.

4. The dark. At night, when it was time for sleep, I would be scared for no reason. My American Girl Dolls looked especially terrifying in the glow of my red lava lamp when the lights were off. I mean, those dolls were scary even in the light of day. I swear they could look into your soul. My dad knew I was scared of them and would always put them on my bed, so when I walked in my room they would be starring straight at me.

One time when I woke in the middle of the night, I saw a ghost child in my mirror. It waved for me to come closer but I pretty much ran into my parent’s room and slept there. That was really the only time I think I’ve seen a ghost in my life. I mean, it could’ve been smudges on the mirror….okay it was definitely smudges and fingerprints on the mirror, but it looked so real, man.

5. My friend’s older siblings. I wasn’t familiar with the world of older siblings simply because I was the eldest child in my family. My friend’s older brothers and sisters always seemed so grown up and frankly, terrifying. One time I was sleeping over at my friend Kelly’s house and she and I were just playing a friendly game of Crossfire when her sister sauntered into the room telling us that we had to watch this movie with her. It was a Slither-ish movie where this girl was sitting in her bathtub and huge leech-like insects went into her ears and basically destroyed her life. Just like Kelly’s sister was destroying my life. And then to top off the night, her sister made me eat cheese. Torture.

That list may not be frightening to most of you any of you, but it gave me a lot of anxiety. There were dangers and things to be scared of around every corner. And I just happened to find them all.

Doesn’t 2013 sound like an unlucky year? Is no one bringing up the fact that thirteen is unluckiest number of them all? Hotels don’t even make a thirteenth floor, that’s how bad it is. But it’s okay, let’s just all keep pretending that 2013 will be a great year.

I was looking at my resolutions last year and I was actually very surprised. Usually resolutions depress me because I’ve never really set a goal for myself and accomplished it. At least, not on purpose. But I completed a lot of the things on my list with flying colors!

For example, one of my goals was to start volunteering and I estimated that it would only last four months once if I started. Well, not only did I get a volunteering job, I stayed there for 10 months. Technically I’m still there, but they’ve been slow for a while so they haven’t needed me much.

Another resolution of mine from last year was to be more spontaneous in Victoria–do things I haven’t done, make more friends, and put myself out there. Well, now I’ve made lots of friends and did many adventurous things. And by that, I mean that I went camping twice.

Something else I had on my list was to read more. I projected that I would probably read one book this year and I ended up reading five! My little library is growing. I didn’t even realize I was completing a goal I set out for myself. Maybe that’s the key to setting goals, they have to be something you like to do so that you’ll end up accomplishing them no matter what.

Something else I wanted to do was to “make our apartment cozy and perfect”. I am so proud of myself with this one. Around the time that I wrote last year’s post, I had saved up a little over $1000 with my babysitting money and I wanted to buy a couch with it. Since then, I’d saved up enough to buy that couch, a chair and ottoman, a rug, a TV credenza/mini entertainment center, a trunk, and a mirror. I have definitely accomplished that goal. It makes me proud to have “feathered the nest” and I think it makes Paul proud too.

I still had other things on my list that I didn’t really accomplish like going to church more, stop hatin’ on people, and to complain less. And I think those will be my resolutions for this year. The year of the left-over resolutions.

But really, like I said last year, I’m basically perfect and I’m just writing this list out to feel more human.

I wrote about Canadian Thanksgiving last year and I didn’t hold back on the insults. This year, I’m going to take some time to write about what I’m grateful for. Weird, I know. We can pretend that we’re sitting around the table saying what we’re thankful for except that it’s all about what I’m thankful for and you’re not really a part of it.

My family. They are the coolest. Most of you know mi madre. She’s pretty much WordPress famous. But not the kind of WordPress famous where you get Freshly Pressed. All the cool people haven’t been Freshly Pressed. It’s true! If you haven’t been Freshly Pressed, you must be pretty cool. And offensive. My brother is also cool. He’s a way better writer than I am. I don’t know why he doesn’t blog more. Or at all. And my dad is also, surprisingly, very cool. He does all the things. Each member of my family is located somewhere different, but we’re all still a perfect unit. I am pretty lucky that way.

Is it just me or is the black kid being segregated?

My husband. I still think it’s weird that I have a husband. It’s almost like I’m old or something. Without my husband I would be super sad. I tried being without him once after I met him and I didn’t like it one bit. He’s a hard worker and a kind fellow that takes care of me. It’s a big job, you know, taking care of me.

My friends. I really like my little groups of friends that I have all over the world. I am drawn to people that I don’t have to spend time with 24/7. I like being able to pick up right where I left off. My friends from Chicago were always so cool with me living in England and only seeing me during the holidays. I never felt pressure to stay anchored to one place. I also like that my friends don’t take me too seriously and ignore me when I say dumb things and laugh at all of my jokes. I never wanted to have the most friends. I just wanted to have a few good ones.

Blogging. Blogging has opened up so much of the world to me. It’s weird because I never would’ve thought that writing could lead to friendships and learning and laughing. But I have so many people that can see who I truly am on here even when I say dumb things and offend everyone on the internet.

Diet Pepsi: You might be wondering why this is on my list. Diet Pepsi has been a part of my life since I can remember. Actually, I think my dad put some in my bottle once. So technically, it’ss been a part of my life since I can’t remember.

Laughing. Laughing and making people laugh are two of my favorite things ever. You can’t buy laughter. You can fake it, but true, genuine laughter is euphoric. I love being able to make any situation, no matter how serious or painful, funny. It’s a gift, really.